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FORT SCOTT, Kan. —Bourbon County commissioners voted 3-2 Monday night to reject their budget consultant’s request for a temporarily higher mill levy ceiling, which he repeatedly said he did not intend for the county to fully levy.
Instead, commissioners capped the proposed 2027 rate at last year’s level of 56.669 mills.
Matt Lawn of Baker Tilly, the county's contracted budget advisor, had asked commissioners to notify the county clerk of intent to exceed the revenue neutral rate of 54.664 mills with a proposed rate of 57.705 mills — 1.027 mills, or about $147,649, above last year's levy.
Lawn said two funds — elections and emergency medical services — need more mills than they received last year, but he had not determined which other funds should lose mills to offset those increases.
He temporarily set three funds at higher levels to preserve flexibility while deciding where to shift mills. Although that produced a proposed ceiling of 57.705 mills, Lawn said he still expected the county’s final levy to remain flat at 56.669 mills.
"I'm not asking you to commit to anything other than giving us the option of choosing where we're going to transfer those mills from." Lawn said.
When Commissioner Mika Milburn-Kee noted his recommendation a week earlier had been a flat 56.669 mills, Lawn said only the flexibility had changed — not his final recommendation.
“The only thing that's come out of this last week is that I would like to retain some options as to where to take them from,” Lawn said. “I don't anticipate you adopting more than 56.665 (sic) mills."
Milburn-Kee moved to cap the proposed rate at the flat figure instead.
"I'd like to set that in stone and move that we adopt your last week's presentation at 56.669 mills," Milburn-Kee said, noting the flat rate "still increases our revenue by more than 300,000."
Commissioner Joe Allen seconded the motion. He said that although he was concerned the county could not maintain current service levels at the revenue-neutral rate, he did not believe the county should exceed the previous year’s levy.
“So I guess I’m right in that middle,” Allen said.
Allen said Lawn had previously indicated that the county could get by with a rate of about 56.66 mills.
Lawn reiterated that he still planned to recommend that commissioners adopt a final levy equal to the previous year’s rate.
Commissioners Gregg Motley and David Beerbower opposed the motion, arguing that the board should defer to its hired consultant until every department’s proposed budget was available.
“We hired Matt,” Motley said. “I think we ought to take his recommendation.”
“Until you get everybody’s pie on the table, you can’t see what you’ve got,” Beerbower said.
Lawn again told the commission that he did not intend for them to adopt a mill levy over the previous year’s amount.
“Again, I'm going to say it again and I promise it'll be the last time'" Lawn said. "I am not advocating that we raise a mill 0.027. I'm asking you to give us flexibility in where we decide to shift those mills from.”
Milburn-Kee’s motion passed 3-2, with Milburn-Kee, Allen and Chairman Sam Tran voting in favor. Motley and Beerbower voted against it.
Much of the debate centered on the county’s ambulance service, which Lawn said began the year with a negative fund balance and is projected to end 2026 about $47,000 in the red.
The county budgeted $900,000 in EMS revenue but expects to collect closer to $850,000.
The gap reflects ambulance bills the service does not fully collect, leaving property tax revenue to cover the difference. Milburn-Kee asked how the county’s ambulance staffing compares with the years when Mercy Hospital operated the service.
“Do we run more shifts than Mercy did?” she asked.
EMS Director Teri Hulsey said Mercy operated one ambulance because the hospital could handle a much broader range of health care needs in-house.
“We had a fully functioning hospital,” Hulsey said. “I mean, we had inpatient beds, you had ICU, you had everything.”
Hulsey said the service increased to two ambulances as Mercy began eliminating services.
“When Mercy started cutting services is when we went to two trucks,” she said.
Hulsey said the county operated two full-time ambulances, with a third stationed at the fire department, before Mercy closed entirely.
When Tran said the commission could not reduce spending on EMS commodities, Milburn-Kee interjected.
“The only thing you can do is cut back down to one truck,” Milburn-Kee said. “That’s where the expense increased.”
“You can’t cut back to one truck with all the transports that we have,” Hulsey responded. “We have transports, we have transfers. You cannot cut back to one truck and provide the services for this county.”
The board ultimately authorized Tran to sign a notice of intent to exceed the revenue-neutral rate using a maximum rate of 56.669 mills. The notice caps each fund’s levy but allows the county to adopt a lower rate.
A public hearing on the revenue-neutral rate and proposed budget is scheduled for Sept. 14.
